Workplace Bullying and Toxic Behaviours
The Challenge
How might we identify toxic behaviours? How can we empathise with toxic co-workers? What can we do to identify and prevent this from occurring in our workplace?
‘Bullying’ is an ongoing misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that causes physical and/or psychological harm. Almost 75% of employees have experienced workplace bullying at one point in their career. It is prevalent and increasingly common.
The Outcome
The agenda of the session is to,
identify and understand toxic behaviours at the workplace
complete the second double diamond to conceptualise and design solutions
Our Design Players embodied what it was like to be the bully and bullied using bodystorming techniques to discover and explore the possibilities to prevent bullying.
Why Design Thinking?
There is no shared understanding on the definition of workplace bullying, and thus, there we are often stumped to effectively prevent or even respond to bullying.
The Design Thinking approach allows us to look at the problem space holistically and thoroughly explore the various roles that are involved.
It empowers us to take a closer look at our day-to-day lives at work and be mindful of ours and our peers’ words or actions.
Change and understand the perspective of bullying
Our design players were encouraged to help themselves understand their own concept by trying it out. In this case, they embodied the experience of being in a situation of the bully/bullied.
Special thanks to our sponsor Australia Post for kindly providing the venue and drinks.
